Is Charmed Wolf really great at teaching dogs not to pull???? I wonder what method she uses??

LOL don't you remember the thread where we were all saying how we found puppies hard work and Charmedwolf said that she loves puppies and would raise all of ours and return them at a year old ?! She'd actually make a fortune if she did that as a business opportunity!!!

oh, yeah,
that's right! Because she has several of those giant breed dogs, she did think a year of a high energy puppies was "fun", that is right! i do remember!! I know she is a breeder, too, and having a litter around for month or two, might also be "fun".
We were amazed, cuz we do have higher energy dogs and neither you nor i find puppies that easy to be around 24/7, day after day, month after month.

so so many ppl do seem to partially or temporarily lose their minds while raising up puppies......

but raising puppies,
and teaching loose leash training, are two different things. But, maybe she does teach puppies loose leash as well, as she raises them!! (?) If so, i wonder what method she uses.

Plus, Rdog, i also imagine, having this puppy that you did not even get to pick out, thrust onto you to raise, could make the effort of raising up someone else's puppy, when you were dreaming of being able to someday adopt a 2nd lurcher of your very own, i'd think that could make training a puppy even a lil more exasperating at times. It would for me, probably.

i really do not know why anyone WOULD choose a puppy, when they can have an adult dog instead.............

If it's any comfort, Rdog, just the other day, i was on DTA encouraging someone raising an ADULT dog to not pull, and she also thought it seemed very very difficult to do.

My dog was fully adult, and i also found it difficult to teach him to not pull.

There are dogs in my neighborhood, who have been pullers the entire time i've known the dogs (years!). All breeds. all sizes.
no one ever trained them to not pull, cuz so so many of us DO find it hard to teach to a dog. Took my dog forever to get the hang of it.

It's just AWESOME that you're taking the time to teach Gus "proper manners" lol There are many dog owners in my neighbourhood that marvel at Shivon: " How did you get your dog to be so calm on leash??? Fluffy NEVER listens to me...." It's a good idea to start at a young age, (or any age, if you get an adult dog) But many people don't realize that they CAN teach this to an older dog, so they just give up.

//"Maybe the silky leash method...the video used a puppy. I think it's a pretty good method"//

Bekah, i have never heard of this!! What is that about?? If it is a good method, and if you have a link on it, do share! Since so so so many of us find loose leash training so difficult, who knows? this "silky leash" thing might be what frustrated dog walkers need??!!

//"Maybe the silky leash method...the video used a puppy. I think it's a pretty good method"//

Bekah, i have never heard of this!! What is that about?? If it is a good method, and if you have a link on it, do share! Since so so so many of us find loose leash training so difficult, who knows? this "silky leash" thing might be what frustrated dog walkers need??!!

Somebody posted it in another thread and I thought it could have been you

I was using this method on Dexter,the last puppy from Riley's litter, but he left before I could get past the first step. He was a smart puppy though .

LOL I wouldn't care if Gus spent the entire time running around in a paddock as long as I didn't have to walk him . Despite your super confidence in me I'm sure that many of the people on DTA would do a much better job of training Gus than I can, but he's stuck with me and I'm stuck with him. But I honestly don't think Gus is going to stop me being able to adopt a lurcher in the future though Gus's future would still give a crystal ball some paws for thought. As for character mismatch and puppy background... it is actually much more frustrating that he bites Zac's legs whenever I call Zac and pushes Zac away from me but that is another story .

Most adult dogs that I have come across, even dogs that tug their owners, will learn not to tow me around pretty fast. I'm not setting the benchmark high eg/ I would expect to have to take some action if passing another dog but not when simply walking along in an empty street. As I've said already Gus isn't like that, and I guess that is good because he has broadened my experience and I've learnt that the head collars I've generally scorned in the past are not always about whether the dog is trainable or not, they are about whether the trainer has the capacity to train the dog under a given set of circumstances. Sometimes they are even just about giving renewed hope and optimism .

Like I said hang in there ... the puppy I have a year later is so different from the monster I had before. Different timing and circumstances and I don't think it all would have been so traumatic ( for me ). But you cant change what life throws at you. You seem to be finding a way to cope - don't sweat it. You may be thinking you are doing it all wrong but a year later you'll be amazed at what you have taught him as it all begins to sink in and show.

I like the concept of the infin8 but I need the head control for Oliver, so I've stuck with the training halter from Black Dog. I actually was going to buy an infin8 for the deaf bc foster I had, but I figured it'd take so long to get here, he'd be in Ontario by the time it got here LOL. So I bought a Newtrix head halter. It worked AMAZINGLY well!!! It's a similar concept to the infin8

OH, i have nothing against head collars, nothing at all! I even suggested using one to Tif on her first day here, when she described how difficult it is to walk Zara. I've often suggested using head halters, to many ppl here, even to a man down the street who had trouble walking his dog, I've suggested head halters probably dozens of times now!!

and there are lotsa dogs who pull even in the middle of the street, with no fire hydrants, no other dogs around, just dogs who pull... My dog certainly did!!

.like i said, i see dogs in my hood who have apparently pulled their entire lives.
And Rdog, that is marvelous that you are able to teach loose leash to most dogs "pretty fast" as it did take me a long time to get Buddy to be able to master loose leash.

It's just that some of us do fail to get our dogs to properly "like" head halters, despite our best efforts.

GUS CANNOT HOLD THE UNDERSTANDING IN HIS HEAD FOR LONG ENOUGH FOR IT TO WORK BECAUSE IT IS CONSTANTLY ECLIPSED BY NEW AND EXCITING THINGS (like every new leaf and twig and person that is a dot on the horizon). So why waste months trying when as long as we prevent major bad habits developing we can probably revisit the training in a few months and he'll grasp it in a week? That way I stay sane and can even feel I like Gus in the mean time.

When I don't walk Gus for a couple of days (someone else walks him) I can even laugh at the funny things he does, when I do walk him I get so churned up I never want to see him again. We talk about dogs being over their threshold, right? Well, leash training Gus is over my threshold, I'm recognising that and we're taking a break.

There are many people now advocating that all the puppy training class early on in a pups life is way too much too soon. I think in hind sight we spent oo much energy on teaching Oka stuff and not enough time on 'letting her be a dog'.

I waited a year for Oka, and i was going mental within about 1 month of getting her!! She was a total PITA!! She will be 2 in 2 months and she is soo brilliant now. but i would gladly have paid someone to take her off my hands at times!!

It took a while for my partners prefered loose lead walking position and my prefered position to be "balanced" enough that it didn't feel like i was starting all over again each time i took her out.